Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6486585 | Biotechnology Advances | 2018 | 16 Pages |
Abstract
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a major contributor of cancer metastases and hold a promising prognostic significance in cancer detection. Performing functional and molecular characterization of CTCs provides an in-depth knowledge about this lethal disease. Researchers are making efforts to design devices and develop assays for enumeration of CTCs with a high capture and detection efficiency from whole blood of cancer patients. The existing and on-going research on CTC isolation methods has revealed cell characteristics which are helpful in cancer monitoring and designing of targeted cancer treatments. In this review paper, a brief summary of existing CTC isolation methods is presented. We also discuss methods of detaching CTC from functionalized surfaces (functional assays/devices) and their further use for ex-vivo culturing that aid in studies regarding molecular properties that encourage metastatic seeding. In the clinical applications section, we discuss a number of cases that CTCs can play a key role for monitoring metastases, drug treatment response, and heterogeneity profiling regarding biomarkers and gene expression studies that bring treatment design further towards personalized medicine.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Bioengineering
Authors
Sandhya Sharma, Rachel Zhuang, Marisa Long, Mirjana Pavlovic, Yunqing Kang, Azhar Ilyas, Waseem Asghar,